Former Goth superstar and vampire novelist Anne Rice has gone Christian, with her latest series of novels all about Jesus. Her belief may not be any more rational than anyone else's. (And you get a sense of the emotional desperation underlying it in this editorial she's written.) But at least she grasps that.
Look: I believe in Him. It’s that simple and that complex. I believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the God Man who came to earth, born as a tiny baby and then lived over thirty years in our midst. I believe in what we celebrate this week: the scandal of the cross and the miracle of the Resurrection. My belief is total. And I know that I cannot convince anyone of it by reason, anymore than an atheist can convince me, by reason, that there is no God.
True dat, Anne. You cannot reason a believer out of a position they did not reason themselves into.
The Scandal of the Cross? Who died? Ken Lay? Bill Clinton? John Ashcroft? Abrahamof? Come on, Anne, please let is know!
ReplyDeleteReally, though, I do have a serious question. Will Anne's new works on Jeebus include all the homoeroticism that her previous works had?
And I know that I cannot convince anyone of it by reason, anymore than an atheist can convince me, by reason, that there is no God.
ReplyDeleteAn atheist doesn't need to convince you that there is no god because the burden of proof lies with the believer. Just like I don't need to convince you that there is a large invisible dragon in my garage right now. Go right ahead and believe anything you want to believe Anne, but please don't try to make it look like both sides are at a deadlock, because that is not the case at all.
Non believers who are militant about it, who write books insisting God doesn't exist have a great deal to prove. For one, how did the universe come into existence? Why should we believe these atheists that there is no Supreme Being or Prime mover? They can't prove anything except they don't like the idea. --- It isn't "reality" to be an atheist; it's an arbitrary position just like belief. And frankly, the atheists are a bit fanatical if you ask me. They need to think a little more and preach a little less. They need to observe and study and stop thumping their atheistic books.
ReplyDeleteTo whomever is posting as "anne rice" -
ReplyDeleteIf you have to ask what the atheist response is to any of those questions you have obviously not read any atheist literature.
Also, you need to look up "burden of proof". As an atheist I take on the logical negative and refuse to believe until I see evidence.
I find your straw-man atheism to be amusing at best and intellectually corrupt at worst. Try addressing real issues instead of falling back on the fool's war cry of "close minded".
anne--condoleezza--rice. yuck!
ReplyDeleteTo the commenter writing under the moniker Anne Rice, it's not that I don't like the idea of the universe being created by a supreme being.
ReplyDeleteWhat I object to is that some people who believe that the universe was created by a supreme being believe that ancient religious texts embody the inerrant truth of this supreme being and that they can therefore make claims on the rest of us based on what those texts say. It is quite a leap to posit that the universe was created by a supreme being, so therefore if a man has sexual relations with another man for the first time and then gets killed in a car accident on the way home, he is going to spend an eternity in a pit of fire for committing an abomination.
While I consider myself to be an atheist, I am not so arrogant to say that I can rule out the idea that the universe was created by a supreme being 100% But what I find totally absurd is the belief that if I don't acknowledge the existence of this supreme being that I will suffer eternal punishment in some after life for the thought crime of disbelief.
The worst thing an atheist can say to a believer is that you are stupid if you believe that the Earth is only 6,000 years old and that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark. The best thing a Christian can say to an atheist is that we are going to burn in hell for all eternity for the crime of disbelief. Now you tell me which is the more anti-human and fanatical viewpoint.
For one, how did the universe come into existence?
ReplyDeleteHow did your god come into existence?
Try to solve a mystery with another mystery, and you solve nothing.
They need to think a little more and preach a little less.
You need to project a hell of a lot less. In the meantime, I'm sure Anne wouldn't appreciate your posting idiotic remarks under her name. Let her write her own inane dreck. You should at least have the guts to sign your name to yours.
Hey, that might be Anne Rice. She's been known to give herself great reviews at Amazon.com while using their user review system to bash anyone that doesn't like her books. Wouldn't surprise me if she Googled herself regularly.
ReplyDeletems faux rice
ReplyDeleteNon believers who are militant about it, who write books insisting God doesn't exist have a great deal to prove.
No, the burden of proof is on the claimant of something existing. I could say there's an invisible unicorn in my backyard. You don't have to prove I'm wrong, I'm the one who would have the responsibility to supply evidence. . .rainbow colored droppings, hoof prints, SOMETHING.
To the rest of you: I'm not surprised. I recently read Memnoch the Devil and, besides it being very unsatisfying since Lestat is neither a good villain nor a good anti-hero, I could see she has spent a LOT of time researching that mythos and there did seem to be some sympathy for "god".
Given that her husband is gone and she was probably none to stable to begin with, it's not surprising she is finding solace in religion. I wish someone would just tell her drugs are cheaper in the long run.
Well, in the short run it's cheapest to believe that Lestat really exists and have protracted conversations with him in her head that she subsequently publishes online before writing crappy novels about Jesus.
ReplyDeleteI'm just curious--in her new book, is Jesus a vampire? If so, that might explain the resurrection. When they crucified him and pierced his side. if they didn't go up far enough to get the heart, then he would come back from the grave after a couple days, right?
ReplyDeleteAnne might be onto something...?
The above exchange reminds me of something I came across recently:
ReplyDelete>"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But a heresy it certainly is. Jesus told us indeed that 'God is a spirit,' but he has not defined what a spirit is, nor said that it is not matter. And the ancient fathers generally, if not universally, held it to be matter: light and thin indeed, an etherial gas; but still matter." Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams, August 15, 1820
What struck me about this quote is that years and years before Carl Sagan was ever born, Thomas Jefferson was making the "Dragon in My Garage" observation, and realizing that if there is nothing there that can be exmamined, we're talking about "nothing" when we talk within the framework of "existence."
Statements such as "Non believers who are militant about it, who write books insisting God doesn't exist have a great deal to prove," miss the point entirely.
It is no less illogical to say "gods do not exist" than to say "fairies do not exist"--if the description of god, like that of fairies, is something that cannot be observed and does not materially manifest in any way that humans can verify. Verified material manifestation IS what it means to "exist." If you can't verify something manifesting materially, then the only rational conclusion is that the thing doesn't exist. Could that conclusion be wrong? Could the thing be shown at some future date to manifest? Yes, certainly. But until that time, believing a nonmaterial, nonmanifesting thing "exists" means tossing out the only useful meaning of the word "exist."
Either fairies can be said to exist, or god cannot.
Any theist who claims that one need verify the nonexistence of something that already cannot be observed as materially manifesting--such as god--has no basis upon which to unhypocritically reject the existence of fairies, and to say, "fairies do not exist"--since, as far as I'm aware, the nonexistence of fairies has never yet been verified.
@ tracieh:
ReplyDelete::snicker:: I was a greeter at church yesterday (UU, don't freak) and I was doing zombie Jesus impressions. :D But vampire Jesus works as well, too, especially since Anne's mythos has new vampires being made by drinking the blood of their "maker". And in a twisted way it would explain the alleged vampire aversion to crosses. . but because they are holy but because their leader was tortured.
I need coffee. I should not be allowed to blog before coffee.
Hey, as a giant geek, I once ran a very long Mage: The Ascension campaign where Jesus was a vampire (or more accurately, a vampire was Jesus), but not just any vampire, the World of Darkness' progenitor vampire Caine, and it was based on very similar justifications: dying and coming back, living forever, certain magic powers, and blood-drinking Catholic rituals.
ReplyDeleteI do remember, though, a Stephen Colbert commentary on Rice's first Jesus novel, something like "Let me read from the beginning of chapter twelve: 'And Jesus kneeled before the gay vampire...'"
I'm sort of laughing at myself now. I connect coming back from the dead with vampires, then completely blank out on the entire "blood drinking" connection. Where is my brain? Probably eaten away by zombie vampires...?
ReplyDeleteI believe the burden of proof is on you folk to show Jesus is a vampire and not a zombie. It isn't "reality" to believe Jesus is a vampire, it's an arbitrary position just like belief and frankly, you vampire Jesus people are a bit fanatical.
ReplyDeleteAtheists are more annoying than Theists, Prove this and Prove that.
ReplyDeleteHere's one for you:
Prove there are gods to not believe in!
There aren't any, so why would we prove that?
ReplyDelete